Cold Ashes
by The Tenth
Summary: A series of dark and twisted Kitazawa x Eiri oneshots exploring their relationship from different POVs and with different motives Updated: How hard it must have been for Yuki to tear up his photo of Kitazawa and what was going through his mind?
1. Cold Ashes

AN: This chapter was inspired by a scene from the yaoi anime "Song of Wind and Trees" in which it is briefly mentioned that a man deliberately puts his nephew through suffering and psychological torture with the intent of honing him into a better artist.

Feedback is greatly appreciated and put to good use!  
Nolan

**Cold Ashes**

The money changes hands and fear eclipses your angelic features. I can see it in your face. Disbelief. Questioning if this really could be happening. The hands of the men who bought you find your shoulders and tear at your thin white shirt, startling you from the waking dream. You stir to life in a frenzy of motion. Your fragile dove body pulls away in unmasked horror.

I hear you shriek, your voice yet unchanged by manhood. It is a sound that only a boy in your tender years could produce.

"_Sensei!"_

Your eyes burn with terror and desperation, locked onto mine. Even after you witnessed me sell your body, your eyes still turn to me, pleading for me to be your savior.

"Eiri." I hold up my hand and your attackers pause for a moment.

It is enough for me to stroke the side of your tear-streaked cheek. You stop trembling at the feel of my caress and on your knees, you throw your arms around my legs. Your sobs beg me to stay.

When I pull away, your sky-blue eyes beg me for answers, the reason to this madness.

You don't know, Eiri. How could you understand until years from now this blessing I've bestowed upon you? You will become a great author. I will shatter you completely and tear your threadbare soul to ribbons. Only then will you be reborn as a fiery god from the ashes of your own devastation.

You will understand later, Eiri, the lessons only suffering can teach. The masterful tutoring of cruelty and despair will mold you into the artist I could only dream of becoming. When the day has come for you to eclipse me completely, I will fall to my knees and it will be me who worships you.

You will thank me then, my grand author, my angel. You will bless me for this when you understand. But now I can only look away and surrender you to despair.

Only when I hear the first gun blast do I understand that I was the one in need of a lesson. It seems you have surpassed me already. Ahhh, Eiri, you always could write the most exquisitely twisted endings.


	2. Sacrificial Lamb

AN: Thanks to Aja for prompt beta reading.  
Don't read into the religious sub-text too much. I picture Kitazawa as more American than Japanese, and that he doesn't practice any religion. His culture has colored his views of sin and punishment and he uses terms like Heaven and Hell the way an atheist or agnostic would, without real belief behind it.

Remember, to read is human. To comment is divine.  
Nolan

Sacrificial Lamb

I leaned against the outside of the chain link fence with my hands shoved in my coat pockets, waiting for my brother to be dismissed from school. The final bell rang and within seconds a flood of happy children charged outside.

"Yuki!" Yoshiki cried out in delight as soon as he spotted me. He ran towards me with both his arms and smile stretched wide.

My little brother's unbridled happiness sent a twinge through my chest. I knew it was a mistake to come to pick him up, but a man like me is far beyond the help of simple logic.

Yoshiki hit me with all his seven-year-old force and locked his arms around my legs in a desperate hug as if it had been months since we last saw each other, not earlier that morning. "You came!" he said, bouncing on his heels with excitement.

I smiled and ruffled his hair. Soft as down. Another mistake. "I had some time so I thought I'd walk you home from school," I said.

"Mm-kay!" Yoshiki said brightly. He reached out his hand to take mine and I faltered. I should have told him that he was getting too old for it, that big boys don't hold hands. Instead, I closed my hand around his little, sticky fingers and hand-in-hand we walked toward home.

The white tablecloths of a nameless café called out to me as we passed. "Do you want to get an Italian soda on the way?" I asked, jerking my thumb towards the café.

"Yeah!" Yoshiki said, already tugging on my hand. He was never the type to turn down the offer of free sugar.

Inside, the café was dimly lit with dark wood paneling on the walls. It looked seedier on the inside than it had on the outside, but at least the service was friendly. I bought an espresso for myself and an Italian soda for Yoshiki. He wanted to sit outside in the sun, but I said I preferred to stay indoors and he didn't complain.

Yoshiki giggled at the tiny cup that held my espresso. "Did you get that off the kids' menu?" he asked. I shook my head, but couldn't help but laugh a little.

Yoshiki peered at the syrup that hovered heavily at the bottom of his glass and frowned. He prodded at it with his long straw, but the ice got in his way so he fished a spoon to the bottom and began to stir. "Hey, your soda's going to go flat," I warned. Yoshiki ignored me and continued to stir until he'd splashed soda on the table and an ice cube went skidding across the tiled floor.

"I'll get it!" he volunteered. He sounded cheery, as if spilling the ice had all been part of some master plan.

I must have told myself ten fucking times not to look, but I did anyway. As Yoshiki squatted to scoop up the runaway ice cube, I stole a glance at his pert backside. The depth of my own depravity made me feel ill. That made it all right, didn't it? Surely, a madman wouldn't know he was mad. If I know what I'm doing is wrong, then there's still hope for me to correct myself. It wasn't the first time I clung to such tissue paper logic, and it wouldn't be the last.

When Yoshiki returned to the table, he wadded the ice cube in his paper napkin and a look of concern furrowed his young brow. "Onii-chan, you're bleeding," he said.

I had no idea what he was talking about, but his eyes locked on to the lower half of my face. I touched my first two fingers to my lower lip and they came away red with blood. I must have been biting my lip. "Don't worry," I said, pressing my napkin against my lip, "Just dry skin." I smiled reassuringly and Yoshiki visibly relaxed.

"Are you really tutoring a little boy like me?" Yoshiki asked. He swung his skinny legs back and forth under the table and fumbled with his straw.

"That's right," I said. It was eerie to hear Yoshiki ask about Eiri. After all, he was the one who—

"But you mostly teach older kids, right?" Yoshiki asked.

I nodded. I tutored as a part time job to earn some extra money to help me towards my graduate's degree, but I usually taught high school students and undergrads. "That's right," I said, "But Eiri is very smart for his age so he gets a grown-up tutor."

Yoshiki suddenly looked pouty and withdrawn. It made me immediately want to rescind whatever I'd said to put that look on his face. "You don't… like him better than me, do you?" Yoshiki asked in a hushed voice.

I reached across the table to squeeze his little hand and smiled at him reassuringly. "Of course not," I said, "No boy could ever take your place."

Yoshiki smiled at this, but my own words sent dread through me. Eiri was a replacement; that was the whole point. That had been the plan ever since my interest in my little brother turned into something I could not possibly deny, and finally twisted into something I could scarcely resist.

I tried everything to cleanse myself of that desire—ignoring it, indulging in pornography, hurting myself; I even tried to push Yoshiki away. No solution would last, and I knew that feeling inside me would not be denied forever. It was something I needed, but I could never do it. How could I ever lay a hand on my own brother? On the other hand, how could I hold back?

The solution came by chance when a man named Seguchi hired me to tutor Uesugi Eiri. The little blond boy was twelve years old and very bright. He could never compare to pretty Yoshiki, but Eiri had his own feminine beauty about him. He made a good replacement.

The fact that Eiri fell for me just made it easier. It was ideal, really—a sign that this was meant to be. I tried to convince myself it was Eiri I wanted, not my brother. After only a few days of feigned desire, my student responded with interest of his own. I guessed Eiri had been abandoned when he was younger, or perhaps his parents were suffering a particularly messy divorce and that was what brought him to New York. Whatever it was, the boy needed love and was ready to cling to anyone willing to give it. He fed off my interest in him and my affection like he was starving for it. I lavished him with all the feelings I could never let myself unleash upon my brother.

Yet here I was in a café, telling Yoshiki no boy could ever replace him. Was that some sort of dark prophesy? I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I had to believe it was the lesser of two evils. Yoshiki was a sensitive boy, perhaps not the brightest, but no child was ever so kind and loving. Eiri was… Well, he was older, for one, and quick as a whip. He had a family rich enough to send him to New York and hire a private tutor. Surely with an intellect like his, Eiri would find a way to recover. Any psychological damage I put on Eiri would be something from which he could spring back. Heck, the kid even returned my interest so he was practically asking me to--! But if it was Yoshiki… That little angel would never recover.

I knew that I was doomed no matter what I decided. Was it so wrong for me to choose which lamb would be sacrificed?

"There's no one I love more than you, Yoshiki," I said.

Yoshiki grinned around his straw and noisily slurped up the last dregs of his soda. "Okay, I'm ready to go!" he announced. I took his hand in mine again and we resumed our walk home.

I make no apology for what I am because I know I am beyond hope of correction. Cursed with this need, it remains my choice to feed it. I think of what I intend to do to Eiri and it makes me shudder with shame. Yet, even when I feel the flames of damnation licking at my skin, when I see my brother's smile it feels like Heaven's light.


	3. Puppet

_AN: A poem from Eiri POV thinking about Kitazawa. Kitazawa manipulated Eiri like a puppeteer jerking him on strings. Kitazawa's death cut the strings, but even afterwards, all Eiri wants is to go back to those same motions and follow the puppeteer (Kitazawa) again. I was going for a very subtle "loose" rhyme scheme, too, more like assonance (similar vowel sounds repeated) than hard rhyme._

C&C always appreciated. 

Puppet

I want to vomit you up  
From my guts and my mind  
But surrender to memory instead

How you worked the threads  
Of my tangled fate  
Like strings on a marionette

I jerked and danced gladly  
Until things went wrong  
I swayed to the beat of the master's song

Betrayal made splinters  
Of this split wooden man  
A forced submission in a foreign land

With a gun blast—  
SNAP!  
--the strings broke in half

No longer a slave, I still yearn to dance  
To follow my master's steps  
And laugh


	4. Laced with Regret

_A/N: Set within episode 11 when Yuki and Shuichi are on their date and Yuki just told about his past with Kitazawa. I always wondered how hard it must have been for Yuki to tear up the photo of Kitazawa and what must have been going through his mind…_

_Comments and criticism are appreciated._

Laced with Regret

"I'm g-going to buy us some drinks!" Shuichi volunteered. He spoke cheerfully, but Yuki could hear the tremor in his voice.

Shuichi went sprinting off in search of the vending machines and Yuki was alone again. Well… not entirely alone. Kitazawa was with him.

As soon as Shuichi was gone and no one else was around to see, Yuki's face crumpled in sorrow. It hurt even more than he'd thought it would to talk about Kitazawa. It was a story he never had to tell anyone. When the incident in New York happened almost ten years earlier, Tohma was the one who told Yuki's family about it. No one else needed to know.

Shuichi changed things for Yuki, and for the first time in the author's life, he realized he needed to make a choice. Until that moment, Yuki kept Kitazawa-sensei a closely guarded secret from Shuichi, like an adulterer with a secret mistress on the side.

Even when Yuki showed Shuichi the photo of Kitazawa and himself, it pained him to introduce his tutor in such detached terms as "the guy I killed." It felt far too irreverent to describe the feelings he had for his tutor as that of a brother, but what else could he say? It was nearly impossible to tell Shuichi what happened while maintaining a calm demeanor. If he got any deeper than scratching the surface, it would have been impossible to speak.

Yuki traced his fingertips lightly across Kitazawa's face in the photograph. Touching the photo was one thing Yuki never let himself do before lest he mar the surface with fingerprints. It was the only photograph Yuki had of the two of them together and he treated it with immaculate care as if it were a paper-thin piece of glass and not a photo in his hands.

Now he could not restrain himself from touching the picture any longer because this was a parting. This was good-bye. Yuki slid shaking fingertips across Kitazawa's face and imagined it was warm flesh he touched and not the cold slick surface of a photograph.

This was the choice he'd made. Yuki knew what he was going to do from the moment he put the photo in his coat pocket to take on his date with Shuichi. He couldn't keep them both and it would never be Kitazawa's body heat that kept Yuki warm in bed at night.

Yuki took the photo in both hands and before he could let himself rethink it, he tore the photo in half. The pain rocked him to his core and sharp regret lanced through his chest. It hurt as badly as ripping his own flesh, but he knew if he stopped at that moment, he would never find the strength to continue. He ripped the photo again and again in a frenzy until it lay in his hands in a pile of shredded memories.

He clenched the tattered pieces in his fist. Now that it was too late to change his decision, the cresting wave of regret wash over him and he allowed himself to feel it fully. He wanted to take it back, to fix the picture—his last remaining memory of his first and only love. But no matter how devastated he felt in the moment, he knew that in the calm of that morning he'd thought it was the right thing to do—a necessary sacrifice so he could keep something more important.

_I'm going to miss you so much._ It was all Yuki could think about. There was nothing in his life he regretted more than murdering Kitazawa. It felt like reliving the horror of his sins to destroy the last remaining image of him as well.

Yuki forced himself to extend his trembling fist out over the railing that overlooked the bay. He released his grip and the wind greedily snatched the pieces from his fingers.

Yuki watched with haunted eyes as the torn pieces fluttered like feathers on the breeze, gone forever.

"I'm sorry, Yuki," he choked. The tears welling in his eyes finally slipped free and slid down his face. There was no one around to see them, so Yuki did not wipe them away. The wind made them turn instantly cold on his cheeks and it felt good somehow.

There was no turning back and he'd made his choice. His lover would return soon with drinks in hand and a smile on his face. Still, a sick part of Yuki made him want to throw himself over the railing and see if it was not too late to reclaim some of the pieces he'd thrown away. Just a shred to remember him by--that was all he needed!

Yuki turned away from the railing, unable to stand the sight of the pieces settling gently on the rocking waves below. His eyes burned and his throat ached. He realized he couldn't bear the sight of Shuichi either. This was a private funeral and something Shuichi could never understand.

Yuki dragged the arm of his coat down his face to dry his cheeks and quickly moved away from the railing. He made the journey home alone.


End file.
